Suite Life: Maddie
by Thor2000
Summary: Following sometime after Return to 613, Maddie becomes a model with someone sabotaging her and the boys meet their long-lost uncle, and subplot: one of the guests lives through a Suite Life horror movie.
1. Chapter 1

There were several excellent five-star hotels in Boston, and every traveler had their favorites. When noted writer and paranormal expert William Collins passed through town, he always stayed at the Tipton. He was a friend with the clientele there. He had done two paranormal investigations for them in a reputedly haunted room on the fourteenth floor and often hired the candy counter girl as a babysitter when his family was with him. After the cab dropped him off out front, he began his routine hike into the hotel structure, but along the way, he began noticing small idiosyncrasies about the location. For one, it was practically empty out front. Where cars and cabs were usually loading and unloading, the sidewalk was deserted except for the odd pedestrian and random tourist heading past. Esteban was not out front helping guests and bustling for tips as he usually was. Collins also noticed the large green awning over the front entrance seemed a bit tattered and faded. It seemed far older and not so vibrant as he recalled. Norman the doorman was not on duty either. In fact, the door where he usually stood just barely opened for him. It scraped and resisted being opened as Collins pushed against it. It was almost as if no one had been to the Tipton in a long time.

Once inside the location, Collins realized it was not just the front that had fallen into neglect, but the interior. The gold carpet across the floor was covered in dust, walking across it was like sinking into thick oatmeal spreading out before him. The usually active lobby was all but deserted; there was not a sign of a living person anywhere. Irene the concierge was not at her desk; the top of it was covered in a layer of dust across papers and a phone off its hook. Turning into a detective, the wily author picked up the receiver and clicked the line a few times before resting it in its cradle. It was dead. Collins looked to the deserted candy counter where Maddie once greeted everyone with a grin. Over before the elevators on the landing, Zack and Cody's skateboard looked quickly deserted. It was lying upside down with one wheel missing and a stray mouse scurrying around it. It was relatively dark except for the lights streaming through the front windows. Collins's eyes peered up to the overhead chandelier; it's light extinguished, it hung at an uncomfortable angle as if something massive had struck it. Arwin would not have left it like that. The hotel seemed it'd been deserted quite quickly a long time ago. When the paranormal researcher checked out the potted plant, the dusty weak flowers fell apart from his touch. The placard that once introduced the Tipton's resident vocalist Carey Martin had been disturbed. Several letters had been knocked loose, a few stuck in out of sequence to create one nonsensical word: madfitz. Turning around the remains of a collapsed and broken chair, William Collins felt as if he was within one of the deserted haunted houses he visited in lonely little towns from the heartland. Out the corner of his eye, young and lovely London Tipton slowly rose up from behind the admission test in better shape than her father's hotel. Her expression was simple as if it were business as usual. Nothing was wrong with the hotel at all. Her hair was perfect, hanging long down off her shoulders. Instead of her usual expensive dresses, she was wearing a copy of the hotel uniform.

"Welcome back to the Tipton, Mr. Collins." She replied without personality or emotion. "Would you like your usual room?"

"London…" Collins knew her father. He thought of her as a daughter. "What happened to the hotel? Why does it look like this? Where's Moseby?"

"Who?"

"London, honey…" He came around the admissions desk and escorted her out into the open. "Something happened…" His voice was slow and assuring. "I think you're in shock. Let me get you some help…"

"Hi, Mr. Collins!!" Maddie popped up from behind the candy counter. Almost entirely in shadow, she whipped out a rag and started wiping down her counter. Collins looked at her and back to the space next to him. What happened to London? She had been right next to him! He was sure of it. She was there one minute and gone the next. It was as if she had just blinked out when Maddie appeared. Collins dropped his traveling knapsack of clothing and rushed over to her to answer this incredible deserted mystery.

"Maddie!" He gripped her by her arms and shook her lightly. "What's gong on here? What happened to the hotel?! Where are Zack and Cody?"

"Who?"

"Zack and Cody!" He let go of her and frustratingly pressed his hands to her counter to try and get answers. "Carey's boys? How about Arwin and Moseby? Esteban?"

"Mr. Collins…" Maddie turned to stock clean candy on top of dust-covered shelves and soiled compartments. "I have no idea who you are talking about." She reacted whimsically deranged and comically distracted. "I don't know those people." She turned to tend to her merchandise out of habit.

"Oh my god…" Collins looked at her happily pretending nothing was wrong… "Something happened, and you and London are trying to run the place by yourselves. You girls need help…" He heard a squeaking noise behind him and turned to see one of the luggage carousels rolling up to the admission desk by itself. It looked as if it was rolling by itself. He noticed a hand come up from beneath it and reach for his knapsack to toss it on, a full figure of a person rising up with it from the floor. It was another young lady of Maddie's size and age clad in another Tipton uniform with a vivacious mane of dark hair and dark eyes. She took her place behind the carousel and began wheeling toward him.

"Checking in, Mr. Collins?" The voice of Corrie Willows responded to him. "Let me take you to your room." She knocked him forcibly into the luggage carrier over his own knapsack and began pushing him to the elevators. Regaining his bearings, William Collins struggled against his unwanted ride and looked to one of the elevators opening up under its own power like a huge mouth. As the doors slid open, Corrie beamed ear-to-ear and put her strength into pushing the grown man into it willing to enter deeper into the decrepit structure. His face aghast with fear, the paranormal researcher was finally scared of what waited him deep into the crumbling edifice.

"Mr. Collins…"

Hotel manager Marion Moseby rousted the horror writer and paranormal expert from his sleep. Jarred from his somnambulistic adventure, William Collins widened his eyes and took a second to recognize the slender-figured manager that ran the Tipton Hotel with a stern but dutiful hand. The hotel was alive again with the most brilliant colors of gold, orange and green. Every surface was clean and polished, every area sparkled affluent with life and the lobby area once again bristled with life. Irene was at her post. Esteban and Arwin were exchanging banter over before the rotating doors as Norman opened the doors wide to heiress London Tipton carrying her little dog and leading eight Tipton employees with her twenty-two bags of purchases. Over at the candy counter, effervescent Maddie chatted with two of her friends, Corrie Willows and Mary Margaret Culberson, the three of them standing with each other looked like the teenage stars of a Disney TV musical. A faint symphonic tune wafted over the deluge and cacophony of hotel lobby conversations and noises. Collins grunted a bit as he woke and looked again to Moseby.

"I've got to stop reading Stephen King." Collins tried to stir himself awake. "His horror novels are starting to give me nightmares."

"Well," Moseby postured a bit. "Maybe your horror novels scare him." They shared a chuckle. "You really are tired." The horror writer and his family were briefly staying in the Tipton as damage as their house was being handled. He might have just returned home to Maine, but his wife was in the middle of handling a large law case for the local Cage and Fish law firm in Boston.

"You know…" Moseby continued. "The destructive habits of your daughters remind me of a certain set of twins whose names I refuse to mention."

"Yeah," Collins picked up his copy of _Everything's Eventual_ by Stephen King. "All they need is their own TV series, _The Suite Life of Lainey and Georgia_." He cracked his back in place to head up to his suite for rest before his girls escaped day care. He and London shared a brief warm greeting as their paths crossed each other. Two wealthy heirs of powerful New England families parted destinies again while London hastened her step to catch Moseby.

"Moseby…" The sometimes-demanding heiress stopped him. "Who is that?" She pointed to a young man taking pictures of the lobby and ascending staircases. "Why is he taking photos of my daddy's hotel?"

"That London…" Moseby tiredly responded to return to his post. "…is Jason Pryde, a local photographer and visual advertiser who will be shooting a fashion lay-out here this month. I and your father have given him permission to use the hotel in a fashion layout." He turned around again and realized he had said too much. Upon hearing the words "fashion" and "photos," London hastened over and made a pose in the talented young photographer's line of vision. Pryde noticed her in front of him and looked back to Moseby a bit distractedly.

"Excuse me…" He looked upon the simple-minded heiress. "Could you move a bit to the left?"

"Sure!" London was willing to oblige, but Pryde continuing waving her left, left and further left before clicking his photo.

"Perfect!" He told her. "You almost got into my picture."

London dropped her jaw offended.

"I liked the way he handled London." Mary Margaret shared a chuckle with Maddie and Corrie. London screamed upset and went over to complain to Moseby for being slighted. Pryde meanwhile traveled over to his camera bag and packed away his flash before looking up to Maddie. Corrie looked away a second following her idol worship of London. Maddie noticed Pryde looking at her. She reacted a bit offset to be noticed by the thirty-something photographer and even a bit more uncomfortable when he approached her. Maybe he just wanted a candy bar.

"Hi…" Pryde wound his film and removed it from his camera. "Did anyone ever tell you that you could be a model?"

"Me?" Maddie beamed embarrassingly. "No one has ever said that to me."

"Maddie? A model?" Mary Margaret challenged that thought. Maddie shot her a look.

"Yeah," Pryde looked at Maddie. "I'm always looking for potential natural beauties." Maddie's ego went up a notch with that praise. Her lovely features beamed wide with her grinning face.

"Look…" Pryde pulled out his wallet to pluck out a card. "My studio is a few blocks from here. If you're interested, come by and fill out an application."

"Okay!!" Maddie's ego and self-esteem was definitely getting better as she accepted his card. London stopped arguing with Moseby and hastened over with Corrie following her. She looked to Pryde collecting his bag and equipment than instead confronted the candy counter girl.

"Wait a minute…" London reacted in shock over what she had heard. "Her?!" She looked Maddie over once more as her blonde best friend looked at her with deep-rooted annoyance. "Oh, this can't be happening." She started slapping her face to wake herself up. "Wake up, London, wake up, you're having a nightmare."

Even Corrie reacted with annoyed disbelief.

"London, " Moseby came over again to reprimand her. "Look, you've been putting Maddie down for years, but whether you see it or not, some guys like the non-heiress type."

"I'm shocked!" London felt a draft in her tiny world populated only with herself and those who served her.

"I'm shocked!" Corrie imitated her.

"Don't help me…" London tried to shoo her off.

"Hey," Maddie came out from her counter. "Some guys actually like how I look." She paused with a grin. "In fact, I sometimes think I look great!"

"And some guys think I look hot." Mary Margaret added.

"Well," Corrie pushed herself center. " I think London Tipton is perfect."

"Great!" London's ego hit another wall. "The only one on my side is the weird girl!" She accidentally insulted Corrie and marched off for the confines of her world of excess in the top five floors of the hotel known as the penthouse. Moseby rolled his eyes and strayed away again as the three young ladies pulled back together into their informal retinue. As London Tipton ventured up one elevator, Carey Martin the lovely blonde lounge singer had escorted her twin sons down on her way to prepare for her act, but just a few feet from the elevator, a guest to the hotel caught her eye. She looked at him for a few minutes, focused her gaze a bit on him trying to recall him, and once she recalled him, she grabbed her boys by the belts and jerked them behind the Tipton lobby sofa to hide. Intellectual and gifted, Cody groaned from the sneak attack. A bit irresponsible and lazy, Zack felt his chest sprawled against the floor and reached up to pull himself back to eye level.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" He dusted himself off. "Is grandma coming to visit again?"

"No!" Carey whispered frantically to her boys. "Sorry, I scared you boys, but… you see that guy over there." She pointed over to the admissions desk from behind the sofa. Moseby was checking in a guy in a leather jacket and blue jeans with a large travel case. "You see that guy?"

"You mean the guy that looks like dad?" Cody asked.

"There's a reason he looks like your dad." Carey continued in secret. "I think that's Michael, your dad's older brother!"

"We got an uncle?!" Zack stood up straight, but his mother pulled him back down to the floor. Over at the submissions desk, Michael Martin looked over at the area where someone had vanished, and wondered about the appearing and vanishing figure a second before shrugging it off in his mind. Palming his key card, he lifted his suitcase and motioned to the elevators to head to his room. As he moved around the sofa, Carey and her boys snuck around the other side to hide out of view and stood up straight only after Michael was in the elevator and heading away from them.

"One question, mom." Cody's interest became vested. "Why are we hiding from him? I didn't even now dad had a brother."

"Well, honey…" Carey stood up straight and adjusted her t-shirt. "I haven't seen him since you guys were born, but he and your father were always fighting and arguing. Your Uncle Mike's even been in trouble with the law a few times. After the last big blow-up, your father and Mike spilt up to never talk to each other ever again. We kind of forgot him after that." She stroked Zack's hair with her hand. "I hope you boys never turn out like them."

"What was their fight about?"

"I don't know." Carey brushed away a tear to memories she'd rather forget and headed to the lounge to prepare her show. "And I don't want to know."


	2. Chapter 2

2

Pryde's photography studio was a few blocks from the Tipton in the building of a former warehouse converted into apartments. The three-story structure was largely empty except for his studio and apartment on the first and second floors. On her day off, she walked the seven blocks over to be greeted by Donna Forman, Pryde's young assistant and employee in his work. There were a few twenty-something young ladies on site in exotic dress getting photographed atop a large landing four feet off the main floor, but upon seeing their perfect looks, incredible figures and long waving hair, Maddie started feeling the pangs of her self-conscious gnawing at her. How could she possibly measure up to these taller girls with their large busts and long legs based on her petite and average look? She started wondering if she was making a mistake as her nerves and little self-esteem started cutting away at her with London's voice. However, once Pryde heard that Maddie was interested, he had Donna give her an application and W-2 form to fill out. Zoe Trilling and Judy Cassidy, two of the models usually assigned to be photographed by Pryde, looked over to the young blonde girl of Irish-American descent and whispered amongst themselves that, yeah, the Fitzpatrick girl had potential.

"I got to ask…" Maddie looked to Zoe. "Is he professional? He doesn't just… you know, photograph girls?"

"He's as reputable as they come." Zoe had two of the bluest eyes Maddie had ever seen. "And he has to be; his assistant is the daughter of his financial backer."

"If there was any hanky-panky…" Blonde and exuberant Judy had changed from a flowing blue and green dress to more frumpy street clothes. "She'd have busted him years ago." She wished her goodbye to Zoe and headed off to pick up her son. Judy collected her purse and denim jacket and rushed off to get some dinner before her psychology class. Feeling alone in the building, Maddie looked around the entrance hall and continued filling out her forms. She wrote down the first of her several middle names and fudged a bit on her weight. She momentarily skipped over writing down her measurements to write down her accomplishments and interests. Her eyes viewed over the parental consent form for girls not yet eighteen…

"Hi, Maddie…" Jason had come over to greet her again. "Welcome to my studio. I'm so glad you came by."

"I'm a little nervous…" Maddie forced a hesitant grin. "I've read some horror stories about creepy photographers." She stepped from the front waiting area into a vast room with a high ceiling. There were a few rooms along the front of the building lined with shelved spaced between doors and curtained alcoves. A far stairway was heading up into an overhead loft and living area with a kitchen, living room and bedroom. The stage platform was to her right. The entire area was as large as the Tipton lobby if not a bit bigger, but more open, less cluttered and overwhelmed by a vast network of ironworks supporting the ceiling and roof above.

"I treat ever girl like a daughter or sister." Jason remarked.

Donna made a cynical noise.

"I've never been inappropriate." He corrected his comment, but Donna made a smirk.

"I had one girl who acted as if she was in love with me, and she broke my heart!" Jason told the truth.

"Angela Moran was a psycho." Donna gave the details he was avoiding. "She claimed she was carrying your baby and tried suing you for everything you had. You had to get a restraining order against her!"

"I've cared too much for some of the girls." Jason confided in Maddie and carried a stool up some steps onto the stage. Donna nodded in agreement to the truth. "I tried to help some of them through tough times and it sometimes backfired." Jason continued. He placed the stool in the center of the stage and patted it. "Ready?"

"What?" Maddie reacted unprepared. "I don't get a sexy dress? My hair fixed up?"

"You look great and very natural." Jason took her hand as she ascended the steps and escorted her to the stool like a gentleman. "Your hair is perfect." He turned to Donna. "Pick up the lights for me."

"Sure thing, doc…" Donna turned to fuse boxes hidden behind drapery hanging from the rafters.

"Doc?" Maddie wondered about that

"I sometimes doctor photos." Jason checked his light meter as the stage lit up to reveal badly plastered walls and assorted sets and backdrops leaning against the walls. "I can remove ugly moles, erase unsightly blemishes… Show you what you'd look like with blue eyes." He beamed toward her. Maddie giggled a bit.

"Can you show me how I'd look with London's money?" Maddie sat on the stool and adjusted her skirt and blouse. Donna suggested a few outfits she wanted to test on Maddie, and Jason had her follow her instincts. The blonde candy girl fussed with her long hair a bit and stressed nervously a bit. She was scared to death. Her parents were going to go through the roof when she told them about this.

"Why do you look so glum?" Pryde took his camera and replaced the lens. "You're not the girl I saw. Where's the girl I saw laughing and talking with her friends?"

"Off laughing and talking with her friends?" Maddie responded.

"Tell me about them…" Jason waited for a look to shoot. "If you get bored, walk around and play with the props. Act as if you had London's money."

"Okay, …" Maddie made a secret grin about her personal fantasies and heard Jason shooting pictures of her. She felt her spirit improving as she relaxed. "Well, I'm eighteen years old and I go to Sister Mary's School of Perpetual Sorrow, but next year I'm starting public school..." She started talking about her life and friends. She confessed she started working at the Tipton for extra money and how she got to be candy counter girl when the previous girl messed up the inventory. Her steps gradually took her over to stand near a microphone stand where she talked about her love of singing. Donna took her away for a few minutes and gave her a long white dress to wear. That was when Maddie started feeling like a model. Standing before a blowing fan, her long blonde tresses being blown around, she felt she was a little girl again. Donna started watching the process and nodding in approval to her look. The blonde candy counter girl was a natural.

"Whoa…" She remarked. "This girl is going to be big…"

Behind her, another figure entered the studio. Coming through the back entrance in her school uniform, Corrie Willows wandered around the base of the stairs to the loft above and looked the fifty feet over and recognized Maddie, now in a long black evening gown playing dress up. Her hair blown away, she was pulling her arms up maturely to her chest while glancing ferociously over her left shoulder toward Pryde snapping away. Corrie lowered her head in disbelief, dropped her jaw out of annoyed frustration and backed away trying to avoid seeing what she was seeing. Her feelings were hurt, her self-esteem plunging lower… Why was Maddie getting to live her life dream and not her?! Wasn't she pretty enough?!

Backing into the sitting area for clients, Corrie noticed the arm chair and drink area in her way. Her blue eyes scanned over the magazines, coffee table and stray paper cups with dried coffee stains. Her fingers recognized a small pillow, which she picked up, reared backed and threw out of sheer hostility across the room. Her teeth gritted together, her eyes flared with hurt emotion, she watched it sail across the room and knock Maddie over on to her feet!

"Who threw that?!" Jason had shot images of the pillow knocking Maddie out of frame. Donna reacted out of shock, shrugged her shoulders out of confusion and raced to help Maddie. Someone's footprints raced back out the back entrance. Jason and Donna hastened over to Maddie and checked on her for injuries.

"Did I do something wrong?" She held her head. That pillow had clocked her up the back of the head.

"Honey, are you hurt?" Donna checked her for injuries as Jason helped her up.

"Maddie," Jason picked up the errant feather-stuffed pillow from the sitting area. "Someone hurled this at you from back there. Is there anyone you know who would be against you modeling?" Maddie thought a second holding her head and composing herself. Only one name came to mind.

"London!!" She hissed with obvious anger toward that selfish and obnoxious heiress.


	3. Chapter 3

3

Upon seeing Maddie, heiress London Tipton shined her vacuous grin, tilted her head back and assumed proper posture as she advanced on her best friend. Maddie didn't acknowledge her; she was expressing the joy of being a model to her friends from school, people who actually treated her fair. London stood waiting to be noticed, but the blonde one barely looked up to her.

"Maddie, look at me so I can tell you about how much fun I had shopping." She waited for Maddie to look at her. It didn't happen.

"Maddie," London tried again by tapping her shoulder. "Want to hear about the dress I got?"

Maddie glared to London and turned back to listen to her friend Mary Margaret from her school.

"Maddie…" London looked at her. "Why aren't you talking to me?"

"You hurled a pillow at her during her photography session." Mary Margaret spoke for the hostile candy counter girl.

"Yeah, you hurled a pillow at her during her photography session." Corrie echoed.

"Don't help." Mary Margaret stopped her repeating act.

"Maddie…" London reacted hurt then followed Maddie over to fill up the hotel candy dishes and back to the candy counter. "Look, I would never hurt you beyond saying something about you behind your back…."

"Is that an apology?!" Maddie hissed at her. London reared backward afraid of her. "You've treated me like a slave and made nothing but nasty comments about me, my life, my hair and my clothes for as long as I've known you, and yet... you claim I'm your friend!!" Maddie continued hostile and ready to cut the spoiled rotten heiress from out of her life. "And now, someone thinks I'm attractive and you can't stand it! I don't need friends like you!"

"But Maddie…" London was hurt. Maddie was the only person who was nice to her, and she was losing her! "You are my friend. I know I sometimes say mean things…"

"Sometimes?!" Maddie had never been this angry. "You're always saying mean and nasty things! The only way you can make yourself feel better is by making me miserable! Well, I've got something to say to you little spoiled heiress, when I start modeling full time, I'm quitting my job and cutting you from my life!!"

London dropped her jaw emotionally hurt. Even Mary Margaret reeled from that verbal threat. Corrie just withdrew silently at the fight she had created. A few hotel guests reacted or tried to ignore the barrage. For once, William Collins was on London's side. London could be verbally cruel, but he also knew she loved Maddie like a sister; it's just that…. She often forgot to prove it. Trying to think of something to say, London pouted and marched up to Moseby.

"Moseby!" She screeched. "Make Maddie be my friend again!" She pointed her finger at her.

"London," Moseby pretended to sort the admission desk. "Just why did you throw a pillow at Madeline?"

"I wasn't there!" London implored to him. "When Maddie was there, I was off having dinner at Chateau Marmora with Ivana."

"That dog eats better than I do." Collins tried to hide behind his paperback book after mumbling to Esteban the bellboy.

"Maddie," Mary Margaret reacted on the other side of the dispute. "Are you sure it was London who threw the pillow at you?"

"Who else would do it?" Maddie's temper subsided as she checked her merchandise. "I mean, Corrie… you think London did it, right?"

"Well," The cute brunette reacted a bit guilty over something. "I… I don't think London would do a thing like that."

"Why is the weird girl the only one ever on my side?" London commiserated, and Corrie took offense at that continuing remark. She watched as London turned away and walked through the back of the lobby through arches holding up a palatial balustrade and second floor toward a grand ballroom. Her voice grumbling a bit, Maddie reacted hurt and annoyed as she spilled her worries and fears to her friends. She had been photographed last Friday, and that was three days ago without hearing anything. Maybe she was just deluding herself and no one liked her pictures.

"God…" Maddie fell back into her depression. "I should have realized it was too good to be true. I'm never moving on from out of this hotel."

"Mads…" Her pretty African-American friend tried to help. "You got to have faith. Something good will happen. Right, Corrie?"

"Yeah," Corrie reacted distractedly. "Something will happen." Behind her, the elevators parted and Zack and Cody came out and stepped into the lobby. They panned around once, acknowledged Esteban carrying luggage and Mr. Collins reading comfortably in one of the easy chairs as he waited for his wife to finish her court case and then noticed Michael Martin, the uncle they never knew sitting on the sofa across from Collins. Zack saw him first and quickly pointed him out to his brother.

"Zack…" Cody tried to make his brother understand. "He has not seen us since we were babies. He won't recognize us." He took a headstrong approach and strided over to his uncle in the chair. Scanning a copy of a Hollywood gossip page, Mike Martin purveyed over a few articles and casually glanced up to the two blonde boys lined up looking him over. They grinned in unison, and he grinned back. Hiding back behind his newspaper, he shifted in his seat a bit, cleared his throat and then glared back to the twins.

"Can I help you boys?" He asked.

"Hi…" Cody changed his voice slightly. "I'm Ed, this is my brother, Fred." Zack gave a weird little wave. "We're with the Tipton Welcome Committee. We want to be sure you and your family are enjoying your stay here."

"I'm not married."

"So we don't have any cousins, huh…" Zack accidentally slipped from his façade as his brother swatted him.

"He means, uh…" Cody started improvising.

"He means…" Moseby noticed them and came over to stop them from being an annoyance. "That if they annoy one more guest that they'll be relegated to the Tipton Garbage Patrol…." Moseby left his front desk to take charge. "Zack, Cody, do me a favor and go play in traffic!"

"Wait a minute!" Michael Martin recognized those names and cast aside the paper. How many twin boys could have that combination of names? He whirled around the chair, headed off the boys and looked them over. Their faces, their looks… could it be? Could it be them? "Zack? Cody? Are you Kurt's boys?" He beamed ear to ear and dropped to his knees to hug his brother's boys. Overjoyed to meet them again, he chuckled out loud with tears of joy coming down his face to hold them again.

"Not recognize us, huh." Zack looked to his brother a bit uncomfortable by this male bonding ritual.

"Mr. Martin…" Moseby stood by watching the incident occurring in his lobby. "You mean, you're actually related to these… hooligans."

"I've known them from the moment they learned to scream." Michael Martin grinned at the sight of his long lost nephews. Moseby whined a shrill nearly inaudible shriek upon that realization and tried to wipe away his discomfort before turning away once more. "Last time I saw you Zack," Michael continued. "You were peeing all over your brother."

Cody turned and did a long cold disgusted burn toward his brother.

"I had a weak bladder…" Zack reacted as if he recalled it. "So sue me!"

"So," Mike looked proudly upon his nephews. "What are you boys doing here?"

"Our mom sings here, see…" He pointed to the placard describing the ever-versatile Carey Martin as the lounge singer of the hotel. Upon seeing her angelic face before him once more, Mike reminisced back to the past when he, Kurt and Carey sang in underground bars and clubs trying to get by. It seemed like a long time ago, but it was hard rough times. He had also heard she had suffered bad times after the divorce, but he still felt good to see she had made it.

"You know, boys…" Mike beamed to his younger brother's kids. "I'm going to be in town only a few days. Why don't I take you and your mom out for dinner tonight?"

"That'd be great!" Zack jumped excitedly.

"Uncle Mike…" Cody wanted answers first. "What happened between you and our dad? Mom never talks about it."

"It was nothing." Mike claimed. "So, I'll see you guys about seven? Does that sound right?"

"See you there!" The boys bonded once more with their long lost uncle as he draped his newspaper aside with a large full page add sticking straight up. They grinned in unison, looked covertly to each other and rolled their eyes separately fearing the inevitable explosion.

"Mom's going to kill us." Zack remarked.

"No, she's going to kill you!" Cody tried to feel good about the deceit and looked over to the Boston newspaper his uncle had discarded. The girl in the ad looked familiar. She was dressed in a sleeveless white dress clinging to her body, her long blonde hair and cape held over her head flapping in motion from a great wind. Zack checked out the stunning beauty as well and recognized her. It was Maddie, and she was in the newspaper!!

"Maddie!!" They grabbed it and raced to show it to her. Maddie reacted confused at first, unable to recognize her own face and body for a minute, then looked again. It was her! It was her picture! Mary Margaret cheered congratulating Maddie as she turned to hug Zack, himself a bit hesitate to let go until she poked him a bit. Corrie could only react with a groan and her own personal self-esteem spiraling lower. Why Maddie?! Why not herself! Maddie cheered again and hopped around excited.

"What is it? What is it?" London came running back. "Is it a bad picture of me?!" She took the page and stretched it out. "Oh my god! That's Maddie! Wake up, London, wake up!!" She began slapping herself. Maddie snatched her ad back.

"I'm gorgeous!!" Maddie screamed out loud. "That's me! That's me!" Behind her, Corrie rolled her eyes, pulled her hair back and groaned annoyingly.

"Hello baby!!" Zack was drooling over the ad.

"I don't get it!" Maddie paced back and forth unable to restrain herself. "Why didn't I hear anything? Don't I get anything?"

"Maybe you're getting ripped off." Cody theorized.

"I got to…" Maddie tried to think. "I got to…" She looked up past Arwin working on the front doors and recognized Donna entering the hotel. They noticed each other right off. The studious redhead had her long hair tied back. She stepped down into the lobby and crossed over to Maddie and her group of friends.

"Hey, Maddie…" She hugged her. "I was passing by and wanted to say congratulations. I also wanted to give you suggestions on what to do with your first check."

"What check?" Mary Margaret spoke first. "She didn't get one."

"You didn't get it?" Donna looked confused and stroked her long red hair back as she looked back. "I went by your house and left a certified check for you. I gave it to this creepy little boy who had his finger up his nose."

"Liam!!" Maddie shrieked and jerked her arm out of hostility to her bratty brother. "I'm really going to kill him this time. I'm getting a car battery and hooking his braces up to it!"

"I'm kind of glad I stopped by." Donna grinned a bit. "If you didn't get the check, you didn't get Jason's note. McMann, Tate and Stephens loved your ad pictures so much they want you for a series of Super-Blonde photos. You're supposed to start shooting on Wednesday."

Maddie shrieked in delight at the news. Mary Margaret screamed in delight and hugged her. Corrie couldn't believe it - her head was reeling. Zack started jumping up and down with Maddie in excitement. Hearing the fracas, Moseby came over to check out the noise.

"What's going on here?" He pushed his way annoyed and upset around Cody and Corrie. "I am trying to run a hotel here!"

"Mr. Moseby," Zack spoke up first from the excitement. "Maddie got her first modeling job! She's going to be Super-Blonde!"

"Congratulations, Maddie…" Moseby looked to her with reserved dignity and decorum then turned back to Cody. "What's Super-Blonde?"

"She's this tiny little cartoon superhero character on all these exercise toys and healthy food plates for kids." Cody answered having been fond of the animated commercials himself.

"The advertisers are starting a new live-version series of ads." Donna added.

"Can't wait to see Maddie in that costume!" Zack started picturing Maddie in the ads already as she shot a look at him.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Up on the twenty-third floor, the twins again showed the pursuits of their separate personalities. Cody was working steadily at the table doing his homework for school, while Zack did his impression of mold as he sat on the sofa wasting his attention on a video game that gave him nothing and contributed even less. With a beleaguered sigh and a sense of purpose, Cody looked at his watch and started for his bedroom. Behind him, there was a slight rapping noise at the door of their suite.

"Zack, could you get that?"

The sixteen-year-old problem child remained transfixed to the television working a joystick to attack and mutilate hordes of animated demons and monsters. The creatures wailed and screamed from the TV as Carey groaned at his lazy lifestyle.

"Cody, could you get that?" She switched sons.

"Sure, mom…" Cody sighed, hastened past his weak-excuse for a brother and advanced to the door of their suite. Cody turned the doorknob and opened it wife to a barely three-foot-tall brunette pixie in the form of five-year-old Elaine Renee Collins, the daughter of the paranormal researcher staying in the hotel. She had long curly brown hair framing her face, large round brown eyes and was clad in tiny red overalls over a pink sweater. Her adorable little face lit up to see Cody.

"Hello, Cody…" She shined to him.

"Hello, Lainey…" Cody was not as excited to see her.

"Hello, Cody's mommy…" Lainey's waved at the other people in the suite. "Hello, Cody's sister." Zack made a face at her.

"Listen, uh, kid…" He came over to set her straight. "I've told you this before. I'm a guy, not a girl."

"With that hair??" The girl reacted with the precocious nature of a child actress.

"Isn't she just adorable!" Carey reacted to see little girls for a chance. Little Lainey could be so precious, but her older sister was a monster known for screaming fits and mischief. She had flooded a department store by blocking a toilet, nearly burned down a restaurant on Beacon Street by accidentally turning over flaming cherries jubilee and had lured the fire department to the Tipton by pulling a fire alarm as an experiment to test as fast they could respond. She was basically Zack with a brain. Lainey, however, was her spy and little cohort in juvenile delinquency. Together, they had prevented more newlyweds from becoming parents that any other force on the planet.

"Can Cody come out and play?" Lainey looked at Carey. "He's my boyfriend."

"Mom…" Cody reacted with nervous hesitation over this girl's crush on him. Zack loved his predicament.

"Oh, honey," Carey could not help but giggle at her son's little fan. "It won't kill you." Cody started to stay something, but then he felt Lainey taking his hand and holding it.

"We're going to be married someday…" Lainey shined to him. Zack started laughing at his brother's increased awkwardness.

"Maybe we can play with Zack's dolls!" Lainey called out excitedly and Zack stopped laughing. He had it with this girl. He walked over, lifted her up by the armpits and started heading out into the hall to dump her off but to look up into the face of another very concerned mother in a business-style jacket and short skirt. Ally McBeal-Collins stared down upon this sixteen-year-old boy carrying her baby girl.

"You better be helping her to her feet!"

"Hi, Ally…" Carey invited another working-mother into her suite. Collecting up her daughter, Ally lightly pushed Zack away to his TV. Lightly juggling her girl, the petite and well-toned attorney tossed away her blonde locks a bit as she once again bonded with Carey. When they first met, Carey was the blonde and Ally had brown hair; now, Carey had returned to her original brunette locks and Ally was a golden blonde.

"I'm sorry she's bothering you." Ally loved her daughter. "But she just loves Cody for some reason."

"I'm going to marry him!" Lainey insisted as Cody cringed at the thought of her by his side.

"And they make a beautiful couple." Zack laughed as his brother swatted him up the head.

"Go play with your dolls." Cody continued to perpetuate the notion Lainey had that Zack was a girl.

"Oh, honey…" Carey fussed lovingly over Lainey. "I'd love it if you were to stay, but I've got a dinner tonight with Moseby…" She didn't notice Cody and Zack's nervous looks. "We're going over my contract."

"Need a lawyer?" Ally offered her services.

"No, I got it." Carey beamed to Lainey once again to stroke her hair. Ally shined for one last moment and said her goodbye to Carey before turning to return to her husband's suite on the sixth floor. Lainey turned her head once to look back to the source of her infatuation.

"I'll be back tomorrow, Cody!" She cheered toward him as her mother carried her out.

"I'll be back tomorrow, Cody!" Zack mimicked her voice to annoy his brother. Cody swatted him again and cursed the attention he got from kindergarteners. Carey tossed a pillow to break them up.

"So guys, when is Moseby coming to take us for dinner?" She had been lead to believe it was to talk about her employment contract.

"About that mom, uh…"

"Wait, are you guys trying to fix me up with someone again?" She recalled them trying to fix her up with Arwin, William Collins before learning he was married, an actor named Jesse Tisdale and even London's father.

"Well…" The boys bonded through their subterfuge, but it was then that Carey realized who else was in the hotel.

"You guys didn't meet up with your uncle, did you?" She looked angry and upset.

"Well…"

"You guys!!" Carey freaked at the news. "How could you?!" Her mind was reeling; her head was looking around trying to find something to get her attention. "I haven't seen Mike since… ever! When's he going to get here?"

There was a knock at the door as she went into shock.

"Huh… he's early!" Zack checked his watch and strolled over to open the door. Cody grinned eager to meet and hear about his uncle, but Carey continued to worry. She checked her clothes, fretted about her hair and tried to look calm despite the screams in her head. The door opened and there stood Michael Martin, his hair combed and freshly shaved. He had a few years on him, his hair was speckled with silver and his face seemed fuller. He had a bit more character now as he lifted a rose to her to announce his presence.

"Michael…" Carey's voice shrieked with nervous anxiety and accepted his token flower of esteem.

"Carey…" He looked upon her with approval. "May I say… you have not aged a day."

"Michael…" Carey again squeaked as her boys stood aside watching the spectacle and waited for the explosion. She reacted nervously unprepared.

"I take it the boys didn't tell you."

"Am I that transparent?" Carey answered. "Michael… Michael… " She tried to think of something to say. "Well," She tried a nervous cordial laugh. "This is a bit of a change. Just let me… change a bit." She looked at her t-shirt and Capri pants and realized she had to change for this change of venue. A harsh glare to her boys and she headed to the bathroom to fix herself up. Cody and Zack looked at each other and tried to look like angels. They looked back to their Uncle Mike.

"So, Uncle Mike…" Zack spoke next. "When did you last talk to our dad?"


	5. Chapter 5

5

"You don't mind playing superhero?" Jason Pryde asked Maddie as they entered the side entrance of his studio from the street.

"No, not at all…" Maddie answered. "I think it ought to be fun!"

"You don't mind being lifted up on wires?"

"Wires?" The cute candy counter girl thought a second. "Course not… as long as it's safe!" She looked to a few other attendants on duty setting lights, building sets and moving furniture. Now, this looked like a modeling studio. There had to be over twenty people or more. Adam Stephens was from the advertisers to talk to the Olympic People who owned the Super-Blonde persona, dinners and exercise toys. An extra aide was working to properly dangle a huge Styrofoam boulder that she would pretend to lift while the tech guys tested the flying harness that would lift her up off her feet. Maddie started getting cold feet to be at the center of this attention.

"It's a shame your family isn't her to watch." Pryde mentioned.

"Both my parents work…" Maddie confessed. "And my grandma… well, she can't bring my little brother out in public." Jason chuckled at that reference.

"Donna…." Jason Pryde looked to his assistant. "Take Maddie to wardrobe and start getting her in costume, okay."

"One problem, doc…" The mousy redhead made a guilty but disgraced grimace. "I can't find the Super-Blonde costume. I thought I laid it out in the changing room, but it's not there."

"Not there?" Maddie looked around the studio apartment and assorted crew. "What happened to it?"

"Uncle Jason?" Corry's voice echoed from behind them in the setting area. She stepped out from behind the curtains to reveal herself in the blue and red costume. The red cape was hanging from her shoulders; the red and gold symbol was across her teenage chest. An insecure swipe of her dark locks from her face, she stood up straight on the platform near the fake boulder suspended from the rafters and posed a bit herself. With a deep breath, she posed as a costumed adventurer with her hands on her hips and a stern look to her eyes.

"Corrie?" Maddie tried to keep from laughing at the sight of her in that outfit. The advertisers reacted confused.

"Oh boy…" Pryde winced with familial strain and sighed a bit before turning again to Donna to control the incident. "I've got a back-up costume in the top shelf of my filing cabinet wrapped in plastic. Go get it and start getting Maddie ready; I want to start shooting as soon as possible."

"Right, doc…" Donna placed her arm around Maddie to get her ready. With one last glance, Maddie continued onward to change into her costume, and Pryde turned round to his sister's daughter. Corrie's personality sunk to realize what had happened. At her feet, her uncle slapped his hand down a few times to get her attention and insinuate he wanted to talk to her at the edge of the platform. Rolling her eyes a bit, the eighteen-year-old girl sighed depressingly for a minute and sat at the edge of the platform as her uncle backed himself up and lifted up to sit by her side in a frank conversation. Just another distraction….

"Uncle Jason…" Corrie tried to pull the skirt down to cover the bottom of the leotard. "Aren't I pretty enough? Don't you think I could be a good model? What does Maddie have that I don't?!" She gestured with dissent to her best friend.

"Corrie…" Jason Pryde hugged his niece close to his side. "I love you just as much as if you were my own daughter, and I think you are a very lovely young lady; don't you ever think other wise, but… your mother would have my head if I started turning you into a model."

"Why?!" Corrie looked back at him. "What does she have against it?"

"Because…" Pryde took a deep breath. "She did it for eleven years and the agencies dropped her when she hit thirty. She's been hostile about it ever since. I think… she's got a major chip on her shoulder about the way they let her go. She doesn't want you going through that."

"Because she got rejected?" Corrie felt she was drowning in conspiracy. "That can't happen to me."

"She didn't think it would happen to her." Pryde continued their heart-to-heart in her nearly deserted studio. "Look, you have so many other talents you're not delving into."

"Yeah…" Corrie agreed with that. "I'm smart."

"Uhhhh, yeah." Pryde seemed to recall her scattered notion that there was a little man in the refrigerator that turned the light on and off. She used to blame him for eating her missing yogurt. "You know, you used to sing a lot; what ever happened to that?"

"Uncle Jason…." Corrie shied away embarrassed from her little girl memories of singing along with tapes of Madonna and Paula Abdul. "I can't sing."

"I think you sing just as good as that girl who used to sing with Zac Efron." He finally got Corrie to grin at herself.

"You know…" She started to share a laugh with her uncle. "Some of my friends say I look exactly like her." She mused a bit and tried to pose as the actress as her uncle checked her out.

"I don't see it." He teased her, and she swatted him. A second later, they were hugging unaware of the on-lookers around them.

"I love you, Uncle Jason." Corrie wished for another world.


	6. Chapter 6

6

It was not often that Carey had a chance to actually enjoy the regal and plush amenities of the hotel. She was usually singing in the lounge four days out of the week and a harried mother the rest. At least she knew what she wanted, and maitre 'd Patrick Kiniski was in a good mood over some of their past feuds. The second floor restaurant was on the top floor with both an interior and exterior dining room. Their much-celebrated chef was Victor Paollo, the mentor to Cody's culinary talents. Paollo tested his young protégé with a new dish while Zack ordered a hamburger and French fries. Not one to just make a hamburger, Paollo fried a hamburger with chopped Portachini mushrooms, herbs and spices baked in with a dab of steak sauce and the boy never knew the distance.

"This is the best hamburger ever!!" Zack could not wrap enough of his mouth around it.

"You got some of it on your shirt." Cody responded and watched his brother eat the crumbs off his shirt. Carey pretended to look away to the light traffic off the exterior balcony and sipped her wine. Mike sliced up his fried swordfish to eat between bites of his salad, but he remained cordial and friendly. He looked with respect to his former sister-in-law and watched his nephews finish up their meals.

"Here you go boys…" He gave the boys each a 100 bill. "This is for you. Go hit the arcade before dessert."

"All right!"

"You're out best uncle ever!" Zack hugged his Uncle Mike and rushed off. Cody raced to place some of it in his savings account. Carey reacted a bit unprepared. She watched her boys dashing off and reacted by dabbing her lips a bit with her napkin. "So…" She was stunning in her blue evening dress. "Where have you been since I last saw you? I mean, I always thought you'd end up in prison or something."

"I did a year…" Mike confessed to her stunned surprise. "A buddy of mine was using my car to smuggle narcotics… but while I was inside, I helped to make a movie about prison life and conditions, and afterward, my parole officer got me into a small Nashville film-making business. I starred in a few straight-to-rental flicks, made a few music videos, did a stint at Lucas Films and now, I'm directing for Orion Films and creating my own. I'm finally calling my own shots; I'm meeting all these great people… I love it."

"You never married?" Carey tasted her Veal Paollo.

"There was a girl I was in love with." Mike stirred his Seafood Medley and pierced a piece of calamari with his fork. "But… it just didn't happen."

"What happened to her?"

"She married my brother."

Carey looked up in shock with her mouth full. She was that girl! Nervously clearing her mouth and trembling a bit awkwardly, she reached to her wine and sipped a bit. Things were turning surreal for her. Things and events from her past were starting to make sense.

"Uh, um… uh… what?"

"I was in love with you first, Carey." Mike could not look away from her. "But I hesitated because I thought you'd never have me, and because I hesitated, Kurt moved ahead and took you away from me. That's why I vanished… I couldn't stand the thought of you two having the life we were supposed to have."

"Oh my god, Michael…." She felt a lump in her throat. Somewhere deep within her, her soul wondered where she'd be today if it had happened. His kindness to her when they met, his anger to his brother… it all made sense to her now.

"I could never be with another girl after knowing you." Mike gazed upon her and felt as if they were both eighteen again. "No one else could compare to what I felt with you."

"Michael…" Carey looked upon her brother-in-law with new eyes. "I so wish we'd had this conversation years ago. How much longer will you be in Boston?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow night." He confessed. "I'm only here to approve some locations for shooting and then I'm heading back to LA for pre-production."

"When will you be back?"

"When I can…" He gazed romantically back upon her. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."

"A lot…" She placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned across to him, her lips closing over his. This time, there was nothing platonic about it…


	7. Chapter 7

7

With her modeling start, Maddie had started a partial portfolio of her favorite pictures. She had also shared a few with her friends and favorite relatives. Her aunt in Seattle got one, and her cousin in California commented she looked like an heiress out there named Sharpay Evans. A picture each also found their way to both Zack and Cody. Cody received a different shot from the newspaper ad, but Zack received a separate advance shot from the Super-Blonde campaign. Upon seeing it, Zack was all-quiet. There she was… Maddie in the blue costume and red skirt with that red cape and big red "S" across her chest. She looked as if she were hovering with her long blonde hair swaying around and her cape flapping behind her. She was beaming ear to ear with her arms crossed before her. She looked the happiest she had ever been. To Zack, she really was a comic book superhero brought to life.

"Are you still looking at Maddie in that ad?" Cody looked at his brother.

"She looks so hot!" Zack was worshipping her all over again. "You know…." He tapped his brother on the shoulder. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that they…." He paused over the indiscretion of what he was about to say. "Padded her a little bit."

"I don't think so."

"Look," Zack made an odd face to try and convince his brother. "I've seen Maddie in just about everything. I know her body. I know how she looks. She looks a bit… endowed in the ad."

"I don't think so." Cody could not believe they were discussing this. "I think it's just the costume paying attention to her… accoutrements." He looked for a much better word.

"I know how to find out." Zack turned from the front entrance and raced over to the source of his infatuation. His eyes began checking her out as she unwrapped new packages of candy bars and candy for her shelves. Zack was looking at her with another of those odd looks.

"Hi guys…" She beamed to them. "What's up? Did you like my pictures?"

"Maddie, " Zack looked to his brother and back. "Uh, Cody and I were just wondering… you know, about your picture. It seems that you… I mean, by the look of it, it seems…. Did they…. Something about it…." He hedged and hemmed trying to say what he was thinking.

"What Zack is trying to ask…" Cody interrupted. "Is there anything about it not real?"

"Well, I should say so…" Maddie responded. Zack and Cody's jaws dropped in shock.

"I'm wearing blonde hair extensions!" She confessed, looked around and whispered over the counter. "It's not all my own hair!" She flared her eyes ashamed.

"Oh yeah…" Zack stepped back embarrassed. "That's what I was thinking!"

"No, it wasn't." Cody responded. "You thought…" Zack popped a napkin into his brother's mouth to shut him up and pushed him off that risk the chance of offending the girl that he loved. Wandering over, Moseby looked at Cody with the mouthful and wished for the same thing full time for both the boys. Turning round once, he turned to his favorite candy counter girl.

"Maddie," He hugged her for the good luck. "Congratulations. I hear this ad campaign will be big. I guess you'll be leaving us soon to cover other offers." He paused thinking of her as a daughter. "May I be the first to say, I'll miss you…"

"Thanks, Mr. Moseby, but I'm not really leaving." Maddie reacted happy, but not excited. "I've got a bit more extra money, but… my Super-Blonde contract is pretty exclusive." Maddie moped. "It prohibits me from taking any other professional modeling jobs for five years."

"I'm so sorry."

"But think of all the offers I'll get while I'm waiting!" She cheered out loud. Moseby cheered briefly with her then quickly regained his decorum to maintain his usual image as the strict but disciplined Tipton manager. They looked up together at the sight of London coming down the elevator. London and Maddie locked eyes on each other. Under barely audible tones, Moseby encouraged the blonde one to make up with the distracted heiress and silently glided away. Maddie tossed away her empty boxes from the stocked candy and pretended to be distracted.

"So…" London inched closer and closer…. "What're you doing here? I thought you'd be off… modeling." She made quotations marks with her fingers around the word "modeling." Whether she was being sarcastic or trying to cast aspersions to Maddie's appearance was indiscernible.

"I signed a pretty exclusive contract that prohibits me from modeling for anyone else." Maddie answered.

London looked at her confused and uncertain of the big words she was using.

"I can't model for a while due to a paper I signed." Maddie clarified for the kindergarten-impaired.

"Oh!!" London reacted, and stood by unsure how to act. Maddie freshened the mints in the lobby and refilled her magazine racks. When she stood, London was standing before her.

"London, I need to apologize to you." Maddie humbled herself. "Corrie confessed to be the one trying to sabotage me. It turns out that Mr. Pryde is her uncle. She's been trying to become a model herself."

"Yeah…" London posed a bit while rolling her eyes. "I probably ought to apologize myself." She took a deep breath. "You know, Maddie, when I get around Portia and Constance and the normal girls, well…."

Maddie made a face at the "normal girls" crack.

"We get so used to insulting each other that, well…" London continued. "I still catch myself doing it when I'm talking to you. The difference is… those girls aren't my friends. You are."

"You're my friend too, London." Maddie and London hugged. As they hugged, Arwin came over touched by their emotion. Crying and bawling, he removed his glasses to dab the tears from his eyes, hugged them too then went on with his business drying his eyes and blowing his nose.

"So…" London giggled a bit. "We're friends again." She shined her adorable smile. "Hey, why don't you take all that money you made and take me to dinner?!" She reacted excitedly.

"I can't." Maddie returned to her post. "I put it all in a savings account for college."

"Maddie…" London smiled at her naiveté. "Money isn't for saving… it's for spending!! Come on, let's hit the stores!" She grabbed Maddie by the sleeve of her hotel uniform and pulled her from the candy counter. Moseby looked at the sight of them heading out; London dragging Maddie out against her will. A brief sigh and a roll of his eyes, he called up his niece to see if she'd substitute at the candy counter.


	8. Chapter 8

8

Author and paranormal researcher William Collins woke with a groan in Suite 614. The other side of his canopy bed was vacant as his lovely wife was off in court protecting the normal world from those would destroy it. The sounds of his screaming girls were off echoing in daycare or to the ears of Elaine Vassal, their favorite godmother. Yawning and stretching his achy body from sleep, he wrapped his robe around his t-shirt and pajama bottom and lifted his feet to the carpet. Rising to stand, he sauntered tiredly to the bathroom to his left yawning again to embrace the waking world over the realm of dreams. A few dried out tree leaves crunched under his slippers as he walked along. He wondered about them for a second and turned to the sink.

The mirror was covered in a hazy layer of dust. That was a bit unusual. The suite had been so clean when he and Ally had arrived. They had even commented on how well it had been restored since his family had taken it over. His mind wondered about it as he reached to turn on the water. No water came pouring through the tap. There was in fact no water pressure at all. He tried both the cold and hot water taps. Nothing. The tap even came off the sink in his hand. As he wondered about the circumstance, he noticed a shadow move through his room out the corner of his eye.

"Ally?" He called. The room was empty. Confused yet puzzled, he stepped back out to the bedroom; his feet crunching over dried leaves with his advance into the room. The window over looking the side of the building was open; he could close that. Turning back to face his suite, he sighed and tried to think. The air in the room was turning dry and arid, almost dead, with the window closed. Collins marched across to check the thermostat for some air. When he did, the window snapped itself open by itself with a loud snap! The sound of it made even the ghost hunter jump with surprise. For some reason, it wanted to be open!

"What's going on here?" Collins returned to it and checked it for hidden springs and devices that would have made it pop open like that. Outside the hotel, the sky was dimming with gray clouds. It was getting darker with the onslaught of storm clouds on the distance. Boston was fourteen floors below him, and yet, he could not hear a single thing. No cars, no traffic, no nothing. It was as if he was within a vast sensory deprivation tank. As his ears searched for other signs of life, his eyes caught the shadow on the glass of someone coming up behind him. He whirled around, but he was still quite alone.

"Okay, I'm getting to the bottom of this…" He marched out consumed with rational thought and his mind filled with facts. His feet crushed and scattered leaves across the floor. The balcony doors looking over the front of the hotel were standing open. The picture of Irene DeMontoya was hanging on an angle. The cushions of the sofa were a bit askew as were a few of the pieces of bric-a-brac decorating the room. Collins picked up the phone off the adjacent table and clicked it for room service. There was no signal for a minute then a voice.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Collins?" A girl's voice asked.

"Yeah, can I talk to Moseby?" Collins spoke a bit upset then realized he recognized the voice. "Wait a second… Maddie, is that you?"

She giggled at him through the phone. Her tone was odd, almost unearthly… somewhat dementedly. Someone was trying to scare him. He felt as if he was being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up alert. There was a definite presence with him and he turned slowly to look back to his bedroom. Standing behind him in the double doors was London, her head turning up menacing toward him. Her eyes expressionless, her long hair flowing down over the front of her outfit and down her back. She seemed to be dressed in a long dark cloak with its hood resting on her shoulders. As she postured before him, it pulled back to reveal a dark leather bodice designed and restricted with open seams held together by small straps that she could breathe comfortably, but yet, also designed to invoke an obvious presence. She resembled an occult priestess from Ancient Greece.

"Mr. Collins," London spoke with a toss of her head. "Is there a problem?"

"Okay, young lady…" Collins stood face to face with her in her Halloween costume. "I don't know what you and your friends are up to, but it ends now."

"I don't know what you are talking about." She walked past him with perfect clarity and diction, a far cry from the often vacuous and distracted heiress she usual was. "Is there a problem with your room? It looks okay to me." She moved past him on high-heeled boots extending up to her knees.

"London," Collins spoke once more. "You are eighteen years old. That outfit is not appropriate for a girl of your age. I don't think it's appropriate for a girl of any age." London had started to turn to him, but her gestures were momentarily vague and hard to distinguish. Her light frame had changed a bit as well, becoming fuller, more obvious as she changed in form. When she turned round to look back upon him, she was no longer London Tipton.

"Is it appropriate now?" Corrie's voice answered for London, her essence now taking the place of the hotel heiress. Collins stepped away from her in surprise. What was going on here? What force… what power could give a young lady the power to change her form!

"What's going on here?" Collins stepped away from her.

"Are you scared yet?" Corrie looked upon him with ominous reflection. "If not… you will be…" She stood between him and the door to his suite and beamed menacingly. The lights flickered as she glanced around the room, circling him like a vulture waiting to pounce!

"What do you want?" The ghost hunter surprised her by becoming adversarial. Corrie's gaze seemed to study him a minute and she looked down to her feet for a second willing another change to herself. A faint blonde streak appeared in her hair and spread through it turning her blonde. The bodice of her long dark dress groaned and creaked as seams lightly spread her body became even fuller for her true form. Lifting up her head, her eyes turned from blue to brown, her face reshaping itself to become the girl Collins considered his daughter.

"Maddie…" Collins looked back at her in that dress trying to hold her. "It was you! It was you this whole time!"

"Yes, it was me…" She responded dramatically defiant to him. "Every guest, every employee, every person in this hotel…" Her hands passed down over the front of her dark dress. "Their every soul contained within this body, making me more powerful than you can imagine. All I need is one more soul to make me… a god!" Her deranged eyes flared with her obsessed omnipotence. She had been possessed by those dark energies, and possibly consumed by them as well; she was no longer that darling candy girl who once babysat for his daughters. She was also much more than he could handle. He dodged backward and turned toward the door to try and escape, but in that split second, she had reappeared behind him and stood in the way of his escape.

"Nimble little minx…" He commented to her. She giggled with a trace of her old schoolgirl persona; within that would-be grin, two of her teeth revealed to be a bit sharper and animal-like. His nervous curiosity piqued, the horror writer gazed in fear at the look of her vampiric grin.

"Oh, do you like my teeth?" Maddie beamed quite proud of them. "They're really great for drinking blood!"

London and Corrie came out of nowhere and grabbed Collins by his arms, pulling him back into the large armchair behind him. Both garbed in Tipton uniforms, they were both strong, stronger than normal. Their eyes were cold, emotionless and unaware of what they were doing. They were mere zombies, pliant to Maddie's will, mentally controlled by her thoughts. London pushed down on his left arm and shoulder. Corrie had her hands pressing down to his right arm and chest. Even with all his might, the heavy six-foot-tall William Collins couldn't resist them. Their strength was superhuman. He looked up to Maddie coming closer to him, her long black cape descending down from her shoulders and across the floor.

"After today…" Her sharp teeth were much more obvious as she spoke, her psychotic eyes widening in excitement with the psychic energies dancing through her. "Maddie the mere mortal ceases to exist, and Maddie the goddess is born!" Her evil grin possessing her face, she placed one hand against Collins' chest, her other hand bending his head to the side. Her excited breath brushed against his neck as she opened her mouth wide to her teeth….

"Mr. Collins…" Moseby's voice again snapped the horror writer back to reality. "Your wife sent me to remind you that you have a seven o'clock dinner reservation." Roused from his sleep, William Collins stirred awake and blinked his eyes once again to the bustling activity of the Tipton lobby. Arwin hastened by with his toolbox to fix something in the back of the building as the other guests crossed through or relaxed in the area. Hotel restaurant maitre d' Patrick Kiniski tried to waver through somewhat unseen and untouched to leave something at the front desk. To his left, Corrie Willows leaned over the candy counter deep into her required reading from school. When she casually looked over the top of her book, she noticed Mr. Collins gazing at her and beamed her bashful and innocent cherry-faced grin. He looked a bit like actor Hugh Jackman to her.

"Oh yeah," Collins stirred a bit wiping the sleep from his eyes and tried to stand. He dropped his Stephen King book into the chair. "I got to tell you, Moseby. Something about the Tipton gives me the best inspiration for my most successful novels."

"Yes, I know…" Moseby stood along the dashing author. "I read your _Reservations Not Required_ novel. I rather thought the heroic hotel manager with the two evil twins practicing the occult sounded familiar."

"You caught that, did you?" Collins had a jovial laugh with the sometimes-stoic manager. As he recollected his book, he turned round and noticed Maddie coming from the direction of the elevators. She was garbed in something other than her hotel uniform. It was a long flowing black dress with a high collar and a tight Eighteenth century bodice that pushed up against her teenage figure. The skirt was long and flowing with a long cape billowing behind her. Her blonde hair had been styled and piled up high into a bouffant.

"That dress…" He looked at her. "I've seen it before…" Collins ceased his jocularity with Moseby and looked upon her with a sense of fear and dread. He glanced back to Moseby a moment, palmed his paperback tightly and slipped away possibly feeling fear for the first time in his life. Collins' path was taking him to the hotel's five-star restaurant to join his wife. A bit puzzled and even a bit curious, Maddie stopped, posed a bit and looked back at him in confusion before looking back to Moseby.

"What's wrong?" She wondered. "Don't I fit in this?" Moseby just shrugged off the incident. "Anyway," Maddie shined once more. "Mr. Moseby, thank you for letting me do my photo shoot here in the hotel."

"Madeline..." Moseby hugged her as if she were a daughter. "I'm always looking into your best interests, but, explain something, I thought while you were under the Super-Blonde contract that you couldn't do any other modeling assignments."

"Oh," Maddie thought she had explained that. "I can't do any commercial modeling gigs; this dress is for an artistic assignment. Yeah… I'm going to be modeling several variations for the cover of Mr. Collins' new book, _Forever Darkness_." She grinned vivaciously excited.

"You should have told him!"

"I wanted it to be a surprise!"

"I think he's going to love it!" Moseby guided her back to the ballroom of the hotel set up for her photography shoot. The ballroom had been set and styled to look like the lobby of a haunted house with old furniture, cobwebs and fake wall backdrop. In the real Tipton lobby, Zack and Cody emerged from the elevator ahead of their mother and Uncle Mike. They had been laughing and getting along quite well over the last few days and had once again reestablished old familial bonds that should not have been broken.

"Mike," Carey had her arm across his shoulders. "Don't be a stranger. You really ought to keep up with the boys. I think you're good for them."

"I'll try…" He gazed romantically into her brown eyes. "But sometimes my schedule is not my own."

"I think this is so cool!" Zack jumped down the steps from the elevator into the main floor. "Our dad is in the music business, we got an uncle in the Hollywood business… hey, we don't happen to have another uncle who makes video games, do we?"

"No…" Mike beamed and tussled the boy's hair. "But your dad and I do have a step-sister who runs a small bistro in Sacramento."

"All right!" Cody's culinary gifts made him excited to someday meet her. Out the corner of his eye, he saw another face he knew. He turned his head to the spiral doors and reacted with surprise. "Dad!!!"

Zack whirled around as well just behind his brother as the two of them raced to greet their father. Musician Curt Martin set aside his traveling bag and opened his arms wide for his pre-teen boys and hugged them tightly. They were the best boys any man could hope for. A great feeling of accomplishment and pride swelled within him as he hugged them. He then opened his eyes to his ex-wife to say hello then looked over and recognized his brother standing before him. How long had it been since he'd last seen him? Eleven years?

"Michael…" He reacted with stunned surprised and abated anger. "What are you doing here?"

"He's passing through Boston on business." Carey spoke up when Mike didn't react fast enough. "We've been catching up over the last fourteen years."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Zack spoke up. "Guess what, dad? He's making movies now!"

"Really?" Old resentments started to well up in Kurt. "And what about Carey? Are you moving in on her or something?"

"Kurt…" Mike just wanted to put an end to old feuds. "I'm your big brother. Would I do a thing like that?!"

A few feet away, Corrie Willows had dozed off while sitting in a stool at the candy counter. Leaning against the register, her head braced with her right hand, she dreamed of wearing a certain costume once more and flying through the skies with a cape flapping from her shoulders. Within that mentally conjured reality, everyone cocked their heads up to the sky as the brunette cutie patrolled the streets of Boston.

"Look up in the sky, it's Super-Corrie!"

And all she could do was smile ear-to-ear.

END


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